


Night Shift: Skyhold General

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - AUs [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Children In Danger, Emergency room, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, Red Lyrium, References to Drug Use, Reunions, Self-Indulgent, Sister-Sister Relationship, Texting, Vignettes, drinking on the job, first conversations, midnight snack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5197817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midnight at Skyhold General Hospital can be calm or chaotic depending on the time of the night. Tensions rise and fall in the ER as the valiant doctors fight to save their patients. </p><p>Oh, and these doctors have the complications of their lives to contend with, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm terrible, I know. And everything I know about emergency rooms I got from the TV show "ER" plus too much Wikipedia. But, well, the idea got stuck in my head and I needed to pour it all out, and so here we are.
> 
> Chapters are not necessarily connected to each other, and might jump forward or backward in time. The one thing I DO know is that we're going to wind up talking about people getting addicted to red lyrium and the harmful effects of such addiction.

“Costume parade.”

“At midnight, even, you have no idea how many patients are wide awake at midnight. They’re bored out of their minds and there’s no one there to talk to, and there’s nothing to watch on TV but shitty action movies and static -- ”

“Hey,” Cullen muttered, looking like he was about to crumple up a wad of used prescription pad and throw it.

“Of course you like shitty action movies, why am I not surprised, is this a kind of epidemic we’re supposed to be diagnosing?” Varric said, taking another long sip from his steaming cup of coffee.

“Getting off topic,” Kiriya said as she picked absently at a hangnail. “Why are you talking to me about a costume parade, do you even _know_ that I’m going to be in for a shift on that night?”

When the response to that was a puffed-out chest and a smug grin she thought she wanted to throw the leftovers from her breakfast sandwich at him. Was that a thing here in the hospital? Were there certain things that all the newbies had to do, like resist the urge to throw things at Dr Tethras? But she knew for a fact that Dr Rutherford had been part of Skyhold General nearly from the very beginning and yet here he was, carefully compressing a ball of paper in his blue-gloved fist.

“Of course you’re on shift that night -- you work on weekends, don’t you? So better dress up.”

“ _You’re_ not staying up to join us, so you’re looking a little bit like a hypocrite.”

“I will certainly be in costume during my shift,” Varric said. “I’m thinking about being a pirate.”

“Ugh,” Cullen said, and shook his head, and got to his feet. “Feel free to walk away from him, Dr Trevelyan,” he said as he ran his hands through his hair. “Most of us have done it to him at least once.”

“I’d do it,” Kiriya said, folding her hands in her lap, “if I didn’t know I was going to get followed around.”

“Hey,” Varric said as he banged his locker door shut. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

Kiriya shrugged, dug a comb from a pocket in her backpack, and started wrestling with her hair.

Footsteps coming toward her, and the _snick snick_ of a key being shoved into a lock, and Kiriya raised an eyebrow at Dorian’s disheveled state. “What happened to you?”

“Stupid alarm clock conked out on me overnight,” was the disgruntled reply. “The only reason I’m here is because I have an alarm on my phone.”

“That’s handy,” Kiriya said as she checked her haphazard bun in the small square of mirror that she’d propped up on the shelf of her locker. 

“Remind me to buy new batteries,” Dorian said, scowling at his immaculately-groomed mustache. 

She shrugged and watched him run a brush through his hair, and went to check the contents of her belt bag. Phone and keys and several pens, a small bottle of hand sanitizer, a handful of brightly-colored hard candies. Her stethoscope and a battered digital stopwatch.

“Dammit,” Dorian exploded after a moment. “I’ll just wear one of those blasted little caps, I don’t have the patience for this and I’ve got to go on rounds in fifteen minutes.”

“Do you have time to answer a question?”

“I have time to answer another one,” he said, shrugging, one-shouldered. “Don’t mind me being all blustery and rude. For you, I have time.”

“This Halloween costume parade thing,” Kiriya said as they walked toward the nearest bank of elevators. “Are you going? What are you wearing?”

Chime of the elevator arriving, and Dorian smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m going, yes, because I quite enjoy the looks on the little kiddies’ faces when they see me all dressed up. Haven’t decided on a costume yet. You?”

“I just learned about it now, like literally three minutes before you showed up,” and his laughing response was cut off by the elevator doors closing between them. Kiriya sighed, and shook her head, and scratched at her temple, before turning into the stairwell and jogging up to the ground floor.

And here, well, here was organized chaos, something familiar, something she knew. Nurses in their scrub suits scooting past, or pushing wheelchairs, or bending over patients in their beds. The corridor that led to the ER’s laboratory facilities, and the one that led to the operating rooms. The large whiteboard that showed where everyone was supposed to be and where they actually were. The cluster of desks that belonged to the chief nurses, and to the attending physicians. 

“Hey, Dr Trevelyan -- Kiriya!” 

She grinned gratefully and side-stepped a girl in a wheelchair who was giggling up at the nurse who was pushing her, and made her way over to the petite woman sitting at one of the desks. “Hey, Dagna.”

“Got you some of those little cupcakes that you like so much,” Dagna said. Not a crumb on her scrub suit and not a hair out of place. Her eyes were wide and knowing, and her fingers could tie neater knots than almost anybody else Kiriya knew. “Tea later?”

“Absolutely,” Kiriya said with a grin. “Whenever later comes.”

“You’re so serious already.”

“You tell me,” Kiriya murmured as she reached for the tablet computer that Dagna offered, next. “It’s the week before Halloween, and every house on my block is stringing up ghost-shaped lights. Black cats cut out of cardboard or tarp or who the fuck knows what else.”

“Little speakers that emit dying zombie noises,” Dagna said.

“Yeah. I hate those things,” and Kiriya checked off a handful of patient charts. “Come on, let’s say hello to the kiddies.”

Past Cullen who was looking over one of the other nurses’ shoulders at a computer screen -- she threw a half-hearted wave at them. Past Zevran, one of the ER’s best nurses, as he checked an elderly patient’s IV drip. Past Barris and the little girl whose cast he was carefully writing on. 

Kiriya looped her stethoscope around her neck and pushed into one of the small holding rooms, and smiled at the little boy with the freckles and the curly hair. “Hey, Sam,” she said.

“Hi, Doc,” Sam said, and offered her a high-five.

Kiriya returned it and sat down in the nearest chair, and gave him a quick examination. “Big breath for me, that’s it,” she said, listening intently to his heart and lungs. “Okay, another one -- ”

But that breath was interrupted by a sudden bout of coughing and wheezing, and Kiriya pouted at her young patient. “That still sounds pretty congested.”

“No fever,” Sam said.

“Yeah, and that’s a good sign. Means you’re getting better. Maybe another day of treatment, all right?”

When Sam let out a defeated little “’Kay” in response Kiriya ruffled his hair and helped him lie back down in the hospital bed that seemed to swallow him up in its institutional sheets. 

To Dagna she whispered, “Give him another shot of that antibiotic we gave him this morning and let me know if his condition changes.”

“You got it, doc.”

A little girl with measles in the next room. A teenaged girl recovering from a bad bout of allergy-induced angioedema in the next. Across the corridor and into the nursery, where Kiriya checked the charts on the two newborns: a preemie boy in his isolette, and a baby girl with the beginning of a dimple in her left cheek. 

There was a parent sitting in the last holding room, and Kiriya tilted her head and addressed him kindly. “You must be -- ” and she glanced at one of the charts loaded onto the tablet. “Mel’s other dad.”

“Yeah, that’s me. I’m Phil. How’s she doing?”

“Doesn’t squirm much, which is a good thing,” Kiriya said, and went over to the bed to smooth back the little girl’s hair. “She should be able to go home in another day or two. Just have to let the cast stabilize completely.”

“My little girl saved my life,” Phil said.

“Have you been checked out by one of the other doctors?” Dagna asked.

“Yeah, they did it the other night when we all came in the first time. I still get a few headaches. Dizzy spells. Comes and goes.”

“If it gets any worse come right back here,” Kiriya advised.

“I will.”

“If it helps, we all think your Mel’s a hero.”

A weary smile. “She’s going to be mine for the rest of my life, that’s for sure.”

Back out in the corridor, Kiriya sighed and rubbed her fingertips against her temple, and handed the tablet over to Dagna. “Sync updates, you know what to do,” she said. 

“It gets easier,” was Dagna’s reply.

“No, no, that’s not it -- I’ve kind of seen worse,” Kiriya murmured, and put her hands in her pockets. “At least there’re solutions here. At least people know what they’re doing.”

“The bosses are _really_ good at finding, you know, the right people for the job.”

“For which I’m eternally glad. I just wish -- ” Kiriya sighed and shook her head and mustered up a smile. “Never mind. Not today, I guess.”

Dagna looked unconvinced, but she left anyway, and Kiriya pulled her phone out and sent a brief message. _Not the first time I wished we’d all been born somewhere else. Somewhere like here._

The response came quickly. _We seem to have turned out mostly all right. I say mostly because of me._

 _You’re all right,_ Kiriya sent, along with a few emojis for good measure. _I just wish things could have been better._

_Well, we all wish that._

“Yeah,” Kiriya said, to the empty corridor. A deep breath, and another, and then she hurried back towards the ER.


	2. Chapter 2

“Heads up, people, we have incoming,” Zevran called from one of the desks from which they monitored the emergency lines. “At least two teams on the way, maybe more. Doctors?”

Kiriya stuffed the last bite of her candy bar into her mouth and tossed the wrapper into the nearest trash can, then picked up a pair of gloves from the box on her table and hurried towards the swinging doors -- 

_Bang._ A team of paramedics. 

“What’ve we got?” Shianni asked, materializing from seemingly nowhere, as she gave the woman on the stretcher a rapid once-over. 

Rapid-fire recitation from the man holding up the IV line: pulse, blood pressure, breathing, broken bones, a car accident. “Drunk driver, not her -- she’s the one that got hit -- seatbelt worked fine but there must have been something wrong with the airbags -- ”

“Accounting for that nose? Looks broken,” Shianni said, shaking her head. “Of all the things to happen. All right, let’s get her stabilized -- ” Her words faded as she disappeared around the corner that led to the ER proper.

“Two teams,” Kiriya said, and no sooner did the words leave her mouth than the doors crashed open again. 

A little girl on the scoop stretcher, dwarfed by the various appliances and EMS paraphernalia. Two women carrying her, one at the head and one at the foot; Kiriya glanced at the former and raised an eyebrow. “Not connected to the drunk-driving incident, I hope.”

“Drunk driving? No, actually, I think it might be a little more serious than that,” the woman said, looking worried. 

“Let’s have it,” Kiriya said, and took note of the little girl’s vital signs. Pulse, fluttering and unsteady; breathing, rapid and whistling. Temperature, slightly elevated. Dark red patches on pale skin, and a thin stream of red liquid -- too bright to be blood -- leaking from the corner of her mouth.

“Inside elbow,” the woman at the foot of the stretcher said.

She turned the limb over, and felt her blood run cold. “Track marks on someone _this_ young? She can’t be more than eleven at the most -- ”

“Not the first time we’ve seen symptoms like that before.”

Kiriya clamped down on the “Shit” that she wanted to say, and motioned the two EMTs through into the operating room. “On three,” she said, instead, and together they lifted the girl into the hospital bed. 

To Harding, who had come into the room on her heels, Kiriya said, quietly, “I want a complete tox screen -- have them test for pretty much every kind of controlled substance they can think of.”

“On _her_?” Harding asked. A quick, comprehensive glance. “It’s because of the track marks.”

“Yeah.” Kiriya nodded as another nurse checked on the little girl’s blood pressure. “Tell them to be as thorough as they can be. Call it a hunch for now.”

“I’d do the screens myself but there’re some people in there I trust with my own life. I’ll have them step on it.”

“Please and thank you,” Kiriya said, and then she thumbed open the little girl’s eyes. Dilated pupils, as she had suspected.

“Doctor,” said a voice at her elbow, several minutes later, as she continued to check her patient for other injuries, as the nurses tended to the bruises and to the scars of recently healed wounds.

She didn’t look up. “Dr Rutherford. What can I do for you?”

“Actually I should be asking you that question,” he said, quietly. “On her way back to her station Nurse Harding asked me to see you here.”

She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye, and gave him a quick overview of the little girl’s condition -- and when she pointed out the track marks the thoughtful expression on his face darkened and turned into a scowl. “Excuse me,” Cullen said, and she thought she saw him reach for his mobile phone as he stepped out of the room.

“What was that all about?” she muttered, before finally getting her patient stabilized, and turning her over to one of the senior nurse physicians. “Get her admitted -- and we may have to make sure she’s guarded.”

Brief flash of alarm behind the mask, but the man simply nodded and said, “You got it.”

Back out into the bustle of the ER and Kiriya shucked her gloves and threw them into one of the hazardous-materials bins. On the way to the toilets she crossed paths with Dagna. “They’ve been looking for you,” the diminutive woman said, tugging on her sleeve. 

“Who in the what now?” Kiriya asked, following in agitated footsteps.

Dagna left her in a shadowed corner of the hospital lobby. Cullen Rutherford standing with his hands behind his back and his mouth set in a grim line. Next to him, knuckles gone white around a battered lighter, was a woman in a crumpled blouse and a black leather jacket. Mud around the hems of her trousers, but fingernails lacquered a brilliant scarlet. Spiky chunks of dark hair that fell to just about chin-length. Piercing winter-steel eyes. 

“Dr Rutherford,” Kiriya said, again. “And you are -- ?”

“Dr Trevelyan,” Cullen said, looking like he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, “I’d like you to meet Olivia Hawke.”

“That’s _Olivia_ to you, doc,” the woman said. 

“In that case please call me Kiriya.” She eyed Cullen. “Is there a reason why we’re meeting here?”

“Your patient,” was Cullen’s quiet response. 

“Which she will tell me about, thank you, Cullen, you should go back to the ER in case anything happens. It’s not a dismissal, don’t get me wrong. But I know you and I know that look in your eyes.” Olivia put her hands on her hips. “I will _not_ trigger you or do anything just as monumentally stupid.”

“I -- yes. Thank you.” Cullen brushed past, but not before: “Tell her everything. I trust her with my life. I realize that might not mean anything to you. But -- please.”

And then he was gone, and Kiriya was staring at the scar inscribed right across the bridge of Olivia’s nose -- the ragged edges just barely missing her eyes -- and she couldn’t help but blurt out, “You refused to see a plastic surgeon, didn’t you?”

Sharp, blade-like smile. “You’ve good eyes,” Olivia said. “And to answer your question: there weren’t any to see. By the time I got out of the sticks it was far, far too late to do anything.”

“Reconstructive surgery,” Kiriya mused. “Skin graft.”

“Nope. I’ve gotten used to the shape of my face now. Gotten used to the scar. It scares the shit out of some people, and I have lost count of how many times that’s gotten handy. In my line of work you gotta take any advantage and every advantage you can get.”

“Which is what exactly? Your line of work, I mean.”

“I’m a -- detective? An investigator? Something like that. I’ve got a pretty little ID in my wallet that says I’m a special agent. But really I’m just a blunt instrument. I kick people’s doors down and if I find out they’re doing things they’re not supposed to be doing, I kick the shit out of them.”

“Sounds like fun,” Kiriya said, and she hid her smile behind her hand.

“It is. Hell on the shoes though.” After another glimpse of that sharp smile, Olivia’s eyes went dark and hooded and focused. “Can we get down to business?”

Kiriya nodded. All the laughter gone now. All the smiles gone, as she thought of the little girl in the hospital bed. She described the track marks and the bruises and the scars; she described the girl’s vital statistics. 

Olivia took no notes, but occasionally interrupted with questions and comments -- “Who called the EMTs?” “I’ll have to talk to them myself; they can help me fill in the blanks.” “Was the girl the only patient?”

Finally, Kiriya mentioned the red substance -- and then she almost took a step back, as Olivia leaned forward. Her eyebrows drawn into a straight line. “I assume you’re trying to identify it.”

“I’ve got the lab working on several samples of the patient’s blood -- requested them to check it for any and every possible controlled substance they could think of.” Kiriya frowned at the ping of the phone in her pocket; she pulled it out and read through the series of text messages rapidly. “And that report is now ready.”

“I won’t trouble you any further today,” Olivia said, nodding. “But -- if I could ask -- I’d really like to get a copy of that report. Or whatever parts of it you can share with me.” Kiriya watched her pull a little card out of her pocket, watched her scribble on the back. Even the felt-tip marker that she used looked a little battered. “You can call me at any time -- that’ll get you the office I’m currently working out of -- they’ll forward the call to me.”

Just as the taller woman turned away, Kiriya heard herself say, “...And Cullen?”

“Long story,” Olivia said, after a moment. “One I’m not at liberty to tell. But I can say that it was not a good period in his life, nor in mine.”


	3. Chapter 3

Kiriya kept looking down at her feet. She could feel the flush of her body as it climbed up toward her hair, as it slid down and past her collar bones. A hand holding hers in a firm grip. Footsteps that she followed, blindly, up another set of stairs and then through the fumbling key-click of a door being unlocked --

Darkness all around, pools of shadow at her feet and the glow of streetlamps from outside the windows -- 

She blinked, and looked up into Cullen’s eyes. Apprehension and anticipation and -- what was that? A flash of worry. Did he want to stop? Was he having second thoughts? And he spoke before she could, and the words that came out of his mouth were:

“Are you -- do you -- did you change your mind?”

And she rocked back on her heels. What kind of question was that? Just because they’d finally made it here -- just because she’d had the courage to keep her hand on his knee on the mad drive back here -- just because they were in a place that was not likely to get them walked in on --

A shrill ring. Once. Twice.

Cullen actually swore, softly, and all but glared at the phone that he yanked out of his pocket -- she could see his hands trembling as he tapped rapidly at its screen -- and then he _threw his phone_ in the general direction of the nearby couch and that startled her enough to make her laugh. A quick sharp sound.

She made up her mind. Kicked off her shoes -- kitten heels or not they were _killing_ her, she was definitely going to put baby powder in Leliana’s hair the next time she saw her. Pulled her own phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to turn this off now,” she said, softly, and though she was sorely tempted to throw her phone after Cullen’s she settled for putting it on the narrow table next to the front door.

Cullen blinked.

Kiriya smiled, and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket, and whispered, right against his open mouth: “Didn’t change my mind. Not planning to.” And: “Bed, please. Your bed. Where is it?”

“Kiriya,” Cullen breathed, and then he was kissing her again. 

She was lost in him again: the taste of him (lemon candy, and insipid Skyhold-General-issue coffee, and the lingering ghost of spearmint). His hands, so _warm_ that they made her shiver as he pulled her even closer: one hand on the small of her back and one at the back of her neck. She couldn’t help but moan, couldn’t help but lick at him, nibbling softly at his bottom lip. The bright momentary clash of teeth as she pulled back, tilted her head another way, and plunged her tongue into his mouth again, and his willing needy sigh. 

Moving, they were moving. She trusted him. She knew he’d answer her question. So she pulled away from his mouth and tried to taste the stubble along his jaw, the warm spot between his mouth and his cheek, the hammering pulse just in his throat -- 

“Kiriya,” and her name left him on a moan -- she could feel the low rumble of his voice all the way to her toes.

She sought his mouth again. Licked at his lip, plush and warm. 

The sound of another door opening.

She pulled away from him, reluctant to take a deep breath, but needing it all the same -- and then she looked around.

No windows in here. A small space that was barely enough for the bed -- she looked over her shoulder and there was something so oddly _comforting_ about the plaid shirt discarded next to the pillows, the tangled jumble of shoes in one of the corners, the hair care products in ragged ranks atop the dresser.

“Sorry for the mess,” Cullen was saying when she turned back to him. She thought he looked like he might shuffle his feet.

“I -- it’s not a mess, it’s your room,” she said. 

“Yes. And -- ” he hesitated. A lopsided smile. “And you look very beautiful, standing in it. I -- it needed to be said. Because it’s true.”

Warmth, this time, was the sweet pulse that flared through her with his words.

She wanted him to smile as she was smiling now.

So she took his hand and pulled him back towards his bed, and she sat down at the foot and said, “I wonder how you can say that when there’s very little light in here.”

A soft huff of a laugh in response, and -- _click_. “Easily remedied.”

Of course he had a lamp on his dresser. 

He was standing over her now, in that bubble of warm golden light that picked out the fine hairs on his arms and the scar on his upper lip and the lines crinkling in the corners of his eyes.

She let him reach out for her, and was grateful to press her cheek to his shirt -- she let him fall back onto the bed with her securely held in the circle of his arms.

His heart beat an irregular rapid rhythm beneath her ear.

And she wanted him to know how she felt, to know how her own heart was racing -- so she took his hand and let his fingertips rest on the pulse-point tucked beneath her jaw.

She wasn’t expecting him to shiver. “This is you,” he said. Soft as the words were, she could hear him clearly.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“And you can hear me. My heartbeat.”

“It sounds good,” Kiriya told him. “ _You_ sound good. And you taste good -- may I kiss you again?”

Another soft huff of laughter. “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

Kiriya looked up at him, and smiled -- and closed the tiny gap between them. 

A slow kiss, this time. A kiss to take her time with. The corners of his mouth were stubbled and warm. She nosed gently over the scar on his upper lip and followed its length with her fingertip. “Been meaning to ask you about this.”

That got her a smile. “Later.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Kiriya murmured, and nipped gently at his lip before kissing him again. Coaxing his mouth open, coaxing soft sounds from him, as she explored him at length. 

His hands on her, suddenly, roaming -- she arched her back. Hissed encouragement. Pulled away just long enough when his fingers slid into the gap between her skin and her skirt. “Yes, yes,” she stuttered out.

Shivers up her spine when he managed to undo the button in the back, when he carefully pulled the zipper down. The palm of his hand was so _hot_ as he stroked her ass in tiny circles that she couldn’t help but grind down against his thigh.

“Clothes off,” she said, and she meant to pull away from him, she did, but he was so warm and solid beneath her. It took effort to sit up. Her fingers shook over the buttons in her blouse, over the clasp of her bra. Panties off with the skirt. 

Then she made the mistake of looking over.

Cullen, naked. Freckles in a comma-shape on his hip. Raised scars in the spaces between his ribs, one of those lines stopping right over his heart. His cock, a hard curve against his thigh.

She touched her fingertips to his sternum, wonderingly. 

And she turned toward him, let him trace the splashed light-shapes on her skin: she watched him trace a spiral in the curve of her elbow. The softness of her belly. Her knees and her thighs. 

When she met his eyes again, he was smiling. “Still beautiful,” he said. “May I?”

She scrambled backwards, towards the pillows, and blinked when he touched -- her hair. Josephine’s fingers in her hair and the same blue-and-white elastic band she normally used, only this time it was holding a braid together instead of her usual low ponytail. 

Kiriya held absolutely still as he undid the braid and handed the elastic band back to her -- she dropped it onto her skirt and put a hand out in his direction. Still the same warm careful fingertips. She’d seen him at work over and over again, had watched him scrub his hands before any number of procedures -- she’d felt those fingers, those hands on her body, just now -- and this time she gave in to her instincts. 

She pressed a kiss to the center of his palm.

And turned back to him. Even in the low light of the room she could see his dilated pupils, his mouth hanging slackly open. Maybe she was doing something right, after all -- so she climbed into his lap and kissed him.

“Kiriya,” she heard him say, as though the sounds were being torn out of him -- and the next thing she knew she was on her back, she was on the bed, and he was looming over her. Hesitating.

“Cullen,” she said. “Have me. I want you to.”

His mouth on hers, his skin against her -- Kiriya closed her eyes and tried to take all of him in. The way she shook when he took her nipple into his mouth and began to suckle. His hands spanning her waist, then moving back to touch her ass again. The shock of his tongue as it traced the rim of her navel. Kisses to her knees before he carefully pried them apart, and a kiss right over her mons pubis.

His thumbs stroking her open, spreading; his mouth, kissing her there, open-mouthed.

Her thoughts, her words, fleeing entirely. Cullen’s mouth, Cullen’s lips, Cullen’s tongue. He licked at her clit and sucked on her folds. He drove his fingers into her -- one, then two, then three. Over and over, building an inexorable rhythm in her, a need that caught at her like a vicious undertow, pulling her under and under until she had to break, until -- 

Dissolving into a rush of pure sensations, nothing but the animal need igniting her nerves -- 

As she crashed back into herself she saw the high flush in Cullen’s face, her own juices running down his chin -- and with a strength she didn’t know she still had she caught him up by the arms and licked at his mouth. Tasted herself on his skin. “Have me,” she rasped, again.

“Yes -- ” he managed to choke out. 

She watched him reach for his cock and was seized by the urge to touch him, right then and there -- and she batted his hand away, gently. Wrapped her fingers around the hard hot length of him, slick already at the tip. Guided him into her, slowly, savoring the experience of him -- bit by bit pushing past her walls, filling her.

Too slow.

Kiriya bucked up, catching at him, seating him fully within her, and she felt her eyes roll back into her head as pleasure sang a high ringing note through her.

“Kiriya, Kiriya -- ” Cullen’s voice, chanting her name. She pried her eyes open and looked at him. His hair falling around his face in loose curls, his eyes wild with such needneedneed, corded muscles in his neck and a powerful tic in his jaw. “Fuck, Kiriya -- ”

“Please,” she moaned, softly, and she crossed her ankles in the small of his back. “Cullen please.”

Thrust and thrust and thrust again, and she cried out his name, every time, that white heat burning her from within -- and the expression on Cullen’s face was fuel to that raging fire. His control and his pleasure twisting together, every thrust wilder and hotter and stronger than the last -- he paused, and said her name -- 

And then he began to _pound_ into her. 

She drove him onward, clawed her nails down his back -- not to discourage. To do precisely the opposite. “More, more,” she gasped, a litany that would break her, and damned if she wasn’t going to take him with her -- 

“Kiriya, fuck, I can’t -- I can’t -- ” Cullen’s voice, jagged edges, erratic panting -- 

“Do it!” she cried.

Again and again and again he thrust into her, and suddenly she found that knife-edge again, suddenly she was pulled over it and she called out his name as she fell -- and it was a shock to hear him feel him come, shuddering violently. 

The echoes of her name in the room, as she slowly came back to herself.

Sweaty sticky slick everywhere, and she never wanted to let go -- she curled around Cullen and let him hold her close, and kissed the nearest bit of him she could reach, and closed her eyes for a moment.


	4. Chapter 4

One foot in front of the other, Kiriya thought, and her toes were pinched together in her shoes and the cold breeze was worming its way into her ribs and her shoulders felt like a knotted and twisted and snarled rope and there might have been something _wrong_ with that last cup of brackish coffee.

And where was the bus? Where was the fucking miserable bus? She wanted to go home, wanted to get away from those damned files -- 

Finally a lumbering mess of metal and wheels and crazed glass. Finally the swaying lurching ride home. She chewed on her thumbnail and watched, numb and unseeing, as the morning rush hour crawled past in the opposite direction. Possibly the one good thing about being on the night shift. Clear roads and the promise of bright dawning day, except of course on rainy days and snowy ones.

It was almost, almost warm inside the bus, but she shifted from foot to foot anyway, because the shivers wouldn’t leave her, because she wasn’t just cold, because two hours of Olivia Hawke was just too much and it wasn’t even the woman’s fault.

Not even the sympathetic faces of the day shift doctors could chase the cold away. Varric offering her a proper chocolate bar, and Jowan asking her if she was all right, and the quiet alarm in Leliana’s face.

Numbers knocking around in the corners of Kiriya’s mind, and she thought she could see the marching rows of cramped script in her peripheral vision, and -- no, no, she couldn’t bring her work home. She couldn’t tell anyone about the unfolding horror story. Oh, how she wished she’d spent the night reading a horror story. No, no, she was far too unlucky.

She was pretty much living that horror story.

 _Red lyrium_ , what the hell, and the dawning anguish in Olivia’s eyes, the faint distinct _crunch_ of her hands clenching into fists. What kind of experiment gone wrong was a drug that not only ate up its consumers’ memories _but grew right inside them?_ Photographs of red crystals protruding painfully from joints. Tell-tale crystalline structures lurking just beneath the dermis. How many times had she slapped her hand over her mouth? Dry heaves didn’t make her feel better. You couldn’t just throw up the disgust and be done with it. It stayed with you and grew and grew.

Again she shook her head, desperately. Again she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She stared at the straight line on the side of her pointer finger: the demarcation between olive skin and the palm of her hand. That was real and that was her. She could do this. She could compartmentalize. Had to get on with the few hours left between her and her bed -- she didn’t want to sleep and fall into endless red nightmare territory --

Her stop. She forced herself to her feet. Out back onto the sidewalk and the familiar smell of lilies. The townhouse on the left, their next-door neighbors, hadn’t been content with a small yard and herbs; they’d dressed up their balconies with planters and window boxes full of hydrangeas, and here and there a handful of pansies. The lilies were obviously the highlight of the whole ensemble, though, and she took a deep bracing grateful breath and fumbled for her keys.

“I’m home,” she called, softly, into the entryway. 

Footsteps, shuffling, and a familiar waft of baking and cinnamon and dark brown sugar. A smile, tilted, inquisitive, gentle. Elisavet in her fuzzy blue-striped slippers. “Hey, Kiriya.”

“Hey, Lis,” she said as she unlaced her running shoes and tucked them into the stacked cubbies next to the front door.

“You look tired.”

“I feel like death warmed over.”

And then she was wrapped in soft slender arms. Lavender bath soap and several hours’ sleep. Silver strands woven into dark copper. Pajama pants straight from the dryer, and a worn green henley that smelled like black tea and bits of dried fruit and cacao nibs.

She held on, and closed her eyes, and pushed the night’s thoughts and the night’s work away. Things that weren’t allowed in the kitchen of her own home; things that weren’t allowed to linger in this place that she shared with the clamor and the voices of her sisters.

Speaking of which: a door banged from upstairs and a voice called, “Is that Kiriya?”

And she started, and pulled away -- just enough to look in her sister’s eyes. “Lis. Why is Marya home?”

“You can ask me,” said the black-clad woman who came sauntering into view. Long-sleeved blouse and lacy leggings and -- incongruously -- a set of neon-rainbow-striped leg warmers. “Hi Kiriya.”

“How’s the foot,” Kiriya asked.

“My foot’s just fine, I’m not dancing today, I’m not _allowed_ near the theater today,” was the airy reply. “You’re gonna like this story. It involves a leading man and a director and -- wait for it -- a case of the chicken pox.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Kiriya ended up in the kitchen, sandwiched between her two sisters, with a warm loaf of bread on the table next to crocks of butter and marmalade, and a glass bowl half-filled with peaches in syrup. 

“Thanks for badgering me to get vaccinated,” Elisavet said as she buttered a slice of bread.

“You’re welcome,” Kiriya said, and passed the marmalade. They were Trevelyans, and Trevelyans were everything but fragile, but if she wanted to be a little more protective of her older sister she felt she had every right to be.

Speaking of which: “Someone in your company got the disease passed to them.”

“My leading man, yeah, and he caught it from none other than his boyfriend’s kid,” Marya said, nodding. “So we’re suspending rehearsals for two weeks.”

Kiriya made a face, and poured herself a glass of juice. “Poor you.”

“Yes, poor me, I get two weeks off free and clear, and I intend to spend the time making sure my feet are well-rested because I’m going to be abusing them again soon enough.”

“You’re not in any pain, are you?”

A careless smile, a reckless one-shouldered shrug. “Still twinges a little, if I hold it _en pointe_ for too long. So I promise you I will not be doing that for at least the next few days.” That smile warmed and turned into something sweet and earnest. “Don’t worry about me, doc.”

“Okay.” 

“Doctor or not, though, you don’t look that well, Kiriya,” Elisavet murmured.

And to that she sighed, and stared morosely at the innocent slice of peach on her plate. “Bad night at the hospital.”

Twin sounds of dismay. “Oh, sweetie,” Marya said, and Kiriya leaned into her shoulder and polished off her breakfast. 

“I’ll be fine,” she lied, “I’ll feel better after I’ve slept.”

“And then straight back to work?” Elisavet made a face. “Is this the part where I tease you about taking your sick days, or not taking them?”

Kiriya made a face at her and was relieved when she giggled and looked away. 

“Well, bed then, you’re burning daylight,” Marya said, after a few moments. “One of us can come sit with you for a bit.”

“Thanks,” Kiriya said, “I’ll -- I’ll manage.”

The last bites of peach tasted like ashes on her tongue -- but finally she made good her escape. The smallest room on the third floor, and she’d been sleeping in that bed for years, enough that it sagged in more or less the exact shape of her body. Textbooks piled at the foot and the familiar beloved barred spiral galaxy emblazoned onto the duvet. 

Cold water and soap that smelled like vanilla and sea-salt: she washed the smell of Skyhold General off her hands, and stripped down to her camisole and panties, and very carefully did not look at herself in the mirror. She didn’t have any red lyrium in her, she knew that, it was what actual reality said. 

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she looked into her own eyes for too long she’d soon be seeing red, in the literal and horrifying sense.

Kiriya burrowed into her bedclothes and muffled a quiet sob in her pillows, and suddenly sat up, bolt upright, thoroughly unsettled. Her fingers shaking as she began to type out a text message. _Here I am with my skin crawling, here I am hoping like fuck I won’t dream of the shit I’ve been reading, and I haven’t considered you. Olivia didn’t say anything but -- that was you, wasn’t it, in one of the charts?_

A moment’s thought, then: _Sorry sorry sorry I don’t want to remind you of terrible shit sorry sorry just ignore me please --_

She’d just sent that message when her phone chimed, quietly. Flash of a notification. A message from -- from Cullen.

_Pay attention, Kiriya, I’m only going to say this once: you can talk to me about red lyrium. In fact you will probably need to talk to me about red lyrium. Yes, I am in those charts, and I don’t mean I initialed them and suggested treatments. I mean that I was exposed to the stuff. And yes, this is all fucking terrifying, this scares the shit out of me, but -- talk to me. Please._

She dove back into the feeble comfort of her bed and set her alarm, before typing out a response: _Why is it okay if it’s me?_

_Because Olivia briefed you, or I’m assuming she let the files do the talking, and you’re still talking to me like I’m a human being._

She bit her lip in dismay. _That’s exactly what you are. You’re a human being. Not some fucking lab rat. Not some kind of creepifying discarded evil experiment._

 _That’s why,_ was Cullen’s response. _I suppose it’s too late to hope you don’t dream about those files._

 _It’s too late for you and it’s too late for me,_ she sent, and then she rolled over and tried not to cry herself to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Brisk breeze, the hum of late autumn in the bare branches, the cries of birds flying to warmer places, and the ecstatic laughter of children chasing after what seemed like an entire kennel’s worth of dogs off their leashes -- and Kiriya grinned and shook Elisavet’s shoulder, gently.

The strains of melancholy song, soft and wisping up around them, from Elisavet’s earphones. The soft surprised spreading smile on her face as she watched, wistfully, the scenes in the park across the street. A cacophony of joyful barking and wagging tails and wet noses. “I wish we could join in,” she said, shivering in the late-afternoon breeze.

“We could cross the street,” Kiriya offered, carefully. “We don’t have to go into the park. But we can watch from someplace nearer. Maybe if we’re lucky you can wave at the dogs.”

“I’d like that.”

And she held her sister’s hand. Walked at her sister’s pace. There was no traffic and the street was only a few lanes wide. Hesitating looping steps. The faintly musty-sweet scent of someone burning wood and fallen leaves and cut grass. Giggling and cries of “Come!” “Sit!” “Roll over!” “Play dead!”

Kiriya couldn’t help but giggle when three extremely fluffy puppies chased after a little girl and then scrambled all over her when she flopped down into the grass: rich brown fur and black-masked faces, and stubby curled tails whipping madly from side to side, which meant fuzzy dog butts swinging from side to side.

“I might die from the cute,” Elisavet laughed, softly. 

“I might join you,” Kiriya said, and she pulled out her mobile phone, tried to fiddle with the crappy zoom settings on its camera, couldn’t do any better than a grainy image -- 

Movement, awkward, unsteady, out of the corner of her eye -- 

“Get behind me,” Kiriya hissed, and reached into her pocket again -- 

A lanky boy. Gangly, underfed, wheezing softly. Straggling mop of ash-blond hair, ungroomed, unevenly trimmed. Bags under his eyes and sores around his mouth, and despair in the lines of his face. 

Kiriya backed up a step.

The boy stopped. Stared her right in the eyes, or tried to, because he was jittering, because suddenly he fell flat onto his face and began to twitch, limbs jerking spasmodically -- 

“You have to help him,” Elisavet said, fear laced into her words.

“I can call emergency services,” Kiriya said, “but I’m not leaving you -- ”

Elisavet’s words, startling, right on top of hers. “I’ll call Yelena, she’s got to be on her way home now, I’ll call her and I’ll stay right here and you can wait till the ambulance gets here _but you have to call that ambulance_. You have to help him,” she said, again.

Kiriya took in the shaking fierce determination in her sister’s face, and threw her arms around her. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Who, me? Amazing? I’m not, you are,” Elisavet said. “You save people. And I know that you can save that boy. Make your calls, I’ll make mine.”

“You’re amazing,” Kiriya repeated -- and she kissed Elisavet on her cheek and then hurried toward the boy on the sidewalk. Speed-dial on her mobile phone. The tinny voice of the emergency services operator. “Calling in to report an emergency -- I’m Dr Kiriya Trevelyan of Skyhold General -- ” She reached the youth and turned him over. “Shit.”

“Sorry, doctor, didn’t quite get that -- ”

Location and condition. A rough assessment. “Going to need assistance in pretty much the next minute or so, I’m just hoping he’s not about to go into arrest on me -- ”

“Ambulance should be there soon, they’re flooring it,” the operator barked at her, and Kiriya drew encouragement not just from that. An agitated conversation just behind her.

“Yelena! I’m going to be fine as long as I know you can get here in the next few minutes!” Pause. “No don’t you _Lis_ me and don’t you dare call Kiriya either -- you’re not going to get anywhere with that anyway, what do you think she’s doing, she’s on the phone with emergency services, you know she’s doing the right thing -- ”

Screaming sirens.

An eerie silence from the park, only a moment long -- and then the dogs began to bark, discordant, layer upon layer of noise -- 

“Come on come on come on,” Kiriya said. Who was she saying it to? The youth on the sidewalk? The ambulance? Elisavet cringing and standing stock-still behind her? 

Herself?

Finally -- Stars of Life and garish orange stripes -- and from the other end of the street, a familiar license plate, rushing. Screech of brakes, shouting voices, the familiar motions of snapping out a stretcher. She got to her feet and turned around: Elisavet leaning against one of the company cars, familiar shade of dark gray, and the worry engraved in every line of Yelena’s face -- 

But when they crossed back to her Yelena only squeezed her shoulder, hard. “We’re not talking about this. You go and do your job.”

“Thanks,” Kiriya said, and then Elisavet was holding her tightly. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” Elisavet said, still shaking. “And I’ll manage.”

“Come home as soon as you can, or call me,” Yelena said. “I’ll come and get you.”

“I will,” Kiriya said.

And then to the ambulance, which had been waiting for her. She cursed her ratty sweats and the fact that she wasn’t wearing socks.

On the stretcher, between her and the man in the first-responder uniform, their patient moaned and tossed his head wildly. Pale pale skin and thready moans. “ETA?” she snapped, and immediately after: “Sorry. I don’t mean to bark.”

“Not a problem, doctor, just give us a few more minutes -- ”

Ambulance bay, and the crash of the double doors, and a host of shocked faces. The most prominent being: “What the hell are you doing here?” Heels and red hair tied away at the nape of her neck. Leliana’s melodious voice distorted by urgency. 

“Stethoscope please,” Kiriya said, instead of answering -- and she checked her patient’s heartbeat. “Shit,” she said. “Rales in both lungs, irregular heartbeat -- and I thought his pulse had gone to the dogs, I thought he sounded like shit and now he sounds _even worse_.”

“I still have questions for you but let’s get this done,” Leliana said, and Kiriya hustled after her into the nearest operating room. The patient moaned as they were transferring him to the hospital bed. Barked orders and the harsh overhead lights reflected in scalpels as they cut away grimy clothes. “Get those things out of here, straight into the incinerator.”

Kiriya carefully laid sheets over the patient. Accepted a pair of gloves from Harding. A still-unsteady pulse, a low pained moan -- and then those eyes snapped open again. Blue eyes, and laboring breaths, and then Kiriya half-jumped out of her skin. Dirty hands clutching at her wrists. She cried out and tried to pull away. “Let me go,” she gritted, “give me my hands back, I can’t help you if you’re holding on to me, _fucking let go!_ ”

“Don’t help me,” the boy said, words hoarse and rasping and jagged, “help them, they need help, they need you help them help them -- ”

“V-fib,” Leliana said, suddenly.

“Shit,” Kiriya said, and with a final almighty effort she wrenched herself away from her wide-eyed patient. “I don’t think he’s getting any more oxygen -- paddles?”

“Paddles,” Leliana agreed. 

Whispers and movement next to her. Kiriya nodded as Harding handed her a pair of familiar black shapes, and spread gel on the patient’s chest. Below the right clavicle, below the left pectoral. Eyes on the ECG readout. Gritting her teeth.

“Ready when you are,” Leliana said.

Kiriya nodded again. “Charging, let’s save this kid,” she said. “Hands up, people, show me you’re not touching him.” And then: “Clear!” 

The boy jerked, hard, beneath her hands. 

“V-fib continues,” Leliana said.

“Going up,” Kiriya replied. “Everybody hands up, and -- clear!” Another shock.

A soft low moan.

“Think that did it,” Harding said, eyes on the rest of the leads into the patient.

“Heartbeat’s going back to normal,” Leliana affirmed. “Get the tests done, loop Dr Trevelyan into the reports -- Nurse Harding, can you take over from here? We’ll be in my office if you need us.”

“Got it, doctor,” was the reply. And: “You heard her, we’ve still got a life to save here, let’s keep going.”

And Kiriya leaned gratefully on Leliana’s shoulder as they exited the operating room. Around a corner and into a familiar cubicle, two desks and a jar of chocolate bonbons and the tiny figurines of graceful duelists. “Sure Josephine won’t mind?” she asked as she dropped into the chair opposite Leliana’s.

A soft, fond smile. “When has she ever?”

“When no one bothers to replenish the jar,” Kiriya said, filching a handful of sweets. Pretty green-and-silver foil in the palm of her hand. 

“Then you’re under orders to get her something back.”

Kiriya shook her head and uncovered one of the sweets, and tucked it into her cheek. Dark rich chocolate and a whole almond. “I’m going to tell you, I wasn’t supposed to be here at all.”

“That much is obvious. Still, you clearly had a role to play in saving that patient’s life. And those words. We’re going to have to report them to someone.”

“Social services,” Kiriya agreed, nodding and unwrapping another bonbon. And a stray thought: “I hope it has nothing to do with that -- thing -- I’ve been consulting on.”

“Yes, I know about that. I’ve been reading up on those files.”

“I feel like we should all be apologizing to Cullen,” Kiriya murmured. 

“Josie and I are buying him something to make up for it,” Leliana said, looking sorrowful. And: “As for you. Watch yourself. People are noticing what you’re doing, you know.”

Kiriya barked out a bitter laugh. “I’ll get one of my suits ironed. For when Madame de Fer calls me in for a tongue-lashing.”

“No,” Leliana said, hard edges in just the one syllable. “Exactly the opposite.”

“Wha?”

“She’s _worried_ for you. Says she’s considering putting you on leave, for your own sakes. You and Cullen.”

“Please no,” Kiriya said. “My patients need me.”

“Only if you’re well, _doctor_ ,” was the firm response. 

“I need to get to the bottom of the red lyrium thing, or we’re going to get more of those kinds of cases.”

“I know. But being obsessive about it will kill you. In case you hadn’t noticed, Kiriya, we kind of _like_ having you around.”

“Only because you caught me doing that stupid dance once.”

“And I still have the video,” Leliana said with a little chuckle, “Josie watches it from time to time.”

Kiriya groaned. And smiled. “Okay, okay, point taken.”

“Go home, Dr Trevelyan,” Leliana said, kindly.


	6. Chapter 6

“Refill?” 

Kiriya blinked bleary eyes and forced herself to look up at the server. Peaked hat, but the perk in his smile was diminishing by the second. Pursed lips. The coffee pot in his hand was tipped almost precisely between the two of them, as though he didn’t know whether to pour or not. 

“Are you all right?”

“Rough night,” Kiriya heard herself say. She allowed herself to sigh. “Sorry. I must look like something the cat dragged in.”

“I’d call a doctor, but then I’d be calling _you_ ,” the young man said. “I mean, I don’t even want to ask about the stains on your scrubs.”

“Smart,” she said. “And yes, I’d love a refill -- but in case I forget, please cut me off after this one.”

“Got it.”

As she stirred three teaspoons of sugar into her freshly refilled cup she pushed the heel of her free hand into one closed eye, and then the other. Checked her mobile phone again. A new message: _Cleared customs, but stuck in a taxi line. Have I got the right address?_ Familiar numbers, familiar location, and Kiriya inhaled half her cup and cursed her sluggish fingers as she replied.

“The things I do for my friends,” she muttered, looking over her shoulder. Logic was dying a slow and lingering death in the back of her head and she had no real idea as to why an all-day breakfast restaurant would line its walls in mirrors, but she’d be a fool not to take advantage. She was meeting someone here after all.

There was nothing to be done for the sleepless-night bruises beneath her eyes, but she could brush her hair and make it a little more presentable. She could make sure there weren’t any bits of her hurried sandwich-dinner left in her teeth. 

Halfway through another jaw-cracking yawn. Another new message on her phone.

_I’m here._

Kiriya perked up, and it was easy to smile, because there was a familiar face coming into the restaurant: an austere face, to be sure, too many angles in the cheekbones and fresh scars marring that familiar suntanned alabaster. 

But that grin! Those eyes! “Cass,” Kiriya whispered, and opened her arms. “Cassandra!”

“Kiriya.” A brilliant light in those eyes. Pure wonderful long-missed strength in the arms that wrapped around her. “It is truly good to see you again, dear friend -- I’ve missed you so much.”

“And I you.” The past few nights fell away from Kiriya’s shoulders as they reluctantly disengaged, as they sat down once again. 

A battered knapsack at Cassandra’s feet, sand-streaked. An olive-green shirt and desert-pattern fatigues. Kiriya frowned at the white winding around her friend’s arm, disappearing into one sleeve. “Only you could get hurt on the way home from a fucking war zone.”

“I had to help,” Cassandra said, simply. 

“Tell me,” Kiriya said.

“I will have time enough to tell you all of my war stories; I’ve come home for good after all. But now you must tell me why you look like fresh-baked hell.”

She wanted to flinch away as Cassandra wrapped warm fingers around her wrist, but she couldn’t, for fear of jostling the coffee cup and the cutlery still laid out on the table.

Narrowed eyes. “Kiriya. Please tell me.” 

And in her mind’s eye Kiriya could see the slump in Cullen’s shoulders and the hard edge in Olivia’s voice as she’d berated them both via Skype. And she was talking to them via video call because their worst fears had been confirmed: the red lyrium problem was _growing_. Worse: it was _spreading_. The boy she’d found on the sidewalk, who’d been babbling about saving others -- there was no sign of the vile stuff in him, but he’d been talking about the places where he’d seen it. A list that grew longer and longer the more lucid he became. 

And now she clamped her hands over her mouth.

“If you’re going to be sick, we are going to the hospital _right now_ ,” Cassandra barked. 

Kiriya shook her head. Swallowed and shivered and said, “No, no, it’s not what you think.” But she was grateful when Cassandra rose, and rounded the table, and sat down next to her, the two of them squeezing together on the narrow mirror-backed bench. “I -- well, I guess I should tell you it begins with a little girl, and with a man.”

“He harmed her.”

“No!” Kiriya tried to pluck her thoughts free, to put them in the right order. “Not even. I mean. There I was on the graveyard shift, right, and it was even a good shift. I didn’t have a lot to do that night except maybe think about a stupid Halloween costume. And then the EMTs came in -- there was a woman who’d been hit by a drunk driver, that wasn’t my case -- the case that came in next was the one that I had to work on.” A hurried gulp of coffee and another bout of whispers. “She was -- there were _things_ growing on her. _In her._ Drugs. Red crystals.” 

She glanced at her friend, then, and there was something worryingly familiar about that frown. “Cass.” And then, horror, spearing through her, rooting her to the bench. “You’ve heard of it?”

“I wish I did not know of that thing you speak of. But yes. People spoke of it in my unit. My superior officers, too. They whispered about it and they were afraid.”

“They should be.”

“I know.”

“No, Cass, I mean they should be, because bad things happen even if you only get _exposed_ to the stuff. You don’t even have to use it. You only have to live around it. Especially if you don’t even fucking know that it was there!” Kiriya clapped her hand over her mouth again. Looked around, wildly, at the other tables -- at oblivious people bent to their morning papers or their scrambled eggs.

“You must calm down,” she heard Cassandra say.

“Yeah. Yeah. Can’t go around scaring people. But -- the things I’ve learned, Cass. And even reading is just absolutely fucking _nothing_ compared to actually hearing it.”

A blink. “Ah. The man you mentioned. You are concerned for him.”

“Yes. He’s -- I have no idea what to call him. I mean, I’ve kissed him, I’ve slept with him, I feel these warm tender fuzzy feelings whenever I look at him -- even when that means I’m looking at him over an operating table, over some unlucky bastard’s perforated guts.” 

Cassandra made a disgusted noise, and then blushed, and then laughed softly. “Your stories still leave nothing to the imagination. But -- this man. This beloved of yours. Is he all right?”

“You mean is there red lyrium growing out of him? No. No no no. I am very thankful for small blessings, trust me on that one, you can take it to the bank,” Kiriya muttered. “Although that might be because we don’t know _shit_ about the effects of exposure in the long term. For fairly obvious reasons. Nearly everyone we’ve seen with red lyrium in them is, well, good and fucked and dead.”

“An evil fate,” Cassandra said, quietly.

“You want to meet him? And the investigator we’re working with? We need information, and I know that look you’re wearing right now, it’s the look that says _I know something and Kiriya’s not allowed to hear it -- for her own damned good._ ”

“That might be wise. But -- not today. Not now. I _have_ just flown home from the wars, after all.”

“And you have no idea how glad I am you’re back,” Kiriya said, fervently. She squeezed Cassandra’s arm with both hands. She leaned her forehead against Cassandra’s shoulder. “You’re back and you’re all in one piece and -- Cass, do you know I haven’t been able to tell my sisters what’s going on inside my head? I can’t. I can’t do that to them.”

“You are concerned for them -- that is completely understandable. I can only imagine the kinds of reactions Elisavet would have.”

“I will not put her through that,” Kiriya said, as vehemently as she could. “But -- but you can see what _my_ problem is.”

“You’ve no one to talk to, no one to unburden to. Well.” A smile. She could have kissed Cassandra. “I came home at just the right time, it seems.”

“Yeah.”

“You can count on me,” Cassandra said. “But first -- come on, you look like you’re about to fall down. Get on home with you.”

“And you?” Kiriya blinked, and then motioned for the check. “Are you still crashing with us?”

“At least until I can see to my old apartment, yes.” She let Cassandra pull her to her feet. “I would not trust you on public transportation in any case, not in your current condition.”

“You’re the best, Cass.”


	7. Chapter 7

Quiet laughter in the corridors. The sounds were coming from some of the rooms, and they were coming from right behind her, and somehow Kiriya forgot to shuffle her feet nervously, because she might have been wearing a full set of Jedi robes but she really wasn’t the only one in a costume.

Hard to feel alone when even some of the patients peeking out their doors were wearing garish pumpkin-grin masks, or little felt bats tangled in their hair, or -- Kiriya’s favorite -- cat-ear headbands made of wire, wrapped round and round in odd mismatched scraps of patterns and colors.

“Places,” Leliana hissed, and Kiriya grinned and pulled her hood up over her face. It was a treat, too, to see the redheaded doctor there, to have a chance for a proper conversation with her, which was impossible when Leliana normally headed up the day shift ER comings-and-goings, with the equally indefatigable Josephine by her side.

Speaking of which -- “Lightsaber, please,” Kiriya said, now, and Josephine giggled and handed the toy back.

“I see the appeal,” she said, making the iconic humming-swoop noises quietly.

“You totally have to get one or two,” Kiriya laughed, softly. 

“I hear you have five. One for each member of the family?”

“No, one for the rest of them to share, and four for me.”

“Lies,” Leliana murmured, and she might have been smiling. Kiriya couldn’t tell for the elaborate clockwork mask and dangling-gear earrings and necklace. “Ready to lead us?” she asked, softly.

“Just turn the lights out,” Kiriya said.

“Good, because everyone else is getting impatient.” She watched Leliana turn and give a thumbs-up -- and then the insistent electric buzz of the overhead lights crackled and fizzed into silence, and she could no longer see anything.

Well, she _was_ carrying a lightsaber.

The replica didn’t go _snap-hiss_ , but that was okay: it gave her a faint blue arc of light to see by. More importantly, it would let the patients see her as she stalked along the corridor. Advice from Marya ringing in her ears: how to walk with presence, how to walk with power. The firm tread of her boots upon the tiled floors -- no squeaking, that would kind of wreck the whole effect -- and the measured gait. 

Halfway down the corridor. Glass windows on her left and on her right, and wide-eyed faces in each. She threw a quick wink at a girl wearing little angel wings and a tinsel-wrapped halo, and mouthed, clearly, “Watch this.”

She held out her hand to the overhead lights. The green-blink of a switch being thrown, of the lights flickering back on, flooding the floor with brightness --

Just enough time for a breath, and then there was a thready moan rising behind her, getting louder and louder -- 

“ _Braiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiins!_ ”

Squeals and laughter, and Kiriya swung her lightsaber up into a high guard position, before she heard the second, louder roar -- and, just as planned, whirled around. The dramatic flare of her cloak, making sure that everyone could see the homespun tunic and the brown trousers, the knee-high boots, the utility belt.

And then she high-tailed it out of the corridor, skidding around the corner and safely out of sight so that she could take in all the others in their costumes.

Another long, low moan, the traditional cry of the zombie -- and she buried her laughter in the voluminous sleeves of her cloak, because Cullen was just about the last person she’d expected to dress up as a zombie. Yet there he was, in tattered bloodstained shirt and trousers, makeup shaping vivid bite-marks and bruises and wounds on his skin.

Screams from the hospital rooms as he lunged at the glass windows, as he gnashed his teeth, as he pounded his fists against the walls --

She was just about to jump out of hiding to try to “subdue” him when there was a flurry of approaching movement: Leliana and Josephine! The former looking truly beautiful and deadly in her steampunk attire, leather armor and top hat and ray gun and all -- and Josephine in a gorgeous sweep of long skirts and multiple mocked-up guns.

Cullen ran for it, and she stepped aside to let him pass, earning grins from him and from the two women in hot pursuit.

“Well, that was exciting,” Dorian said, his voice clarion-clear in the corridor, and Kiriya peeked around the corner to watch him sweep bows to the windows and the half-open doors. A chorus of laughter following his every movement. His hair slicked back, his eyeliner immaculately winged, his vampire-fangs glinting in the overhead lights. Tuxedo and red-lined black cape, and an ostentatious red jewel on the massive signet ring he wore on his right hand.

 _Clank, clank,_ went the next set of footsteps. A bright smile and a crown of fresh flowers threaded into her hair: Dagna in perfectly proportioned armor, the very image of a medieval knight, down to the favor tied to her upper arm. A length of fluttering cream-colored cloth. She waved happily at their patients as she marched down the corridor.

Nurse Harding, next, to oohs and aahs -- and Kiriya couldn’t blame them, not when the Quidditch kit was so carefully constructed down to the last piece of armor and the full-sized replica Nimbus 2000. 

Barris and Shianni and a cheer: modern-day Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson, the two of them intently peering at their smartphones and trading rapid-fire one-liners. He was wearing his deerstalker cap slightly askew, and she poked him a few times with the elaborately-carved head of an elegant walking stick. 

“Love the suit,” Kiriya whispered as Shianni promenaded past.

A bright grin. “I was waiting for the right time to wear it!”

Last but not the least, Zevran -- and Kiriya couldn’t hold back the laughter and the applause, because he’d been threatening to upstage all of them, and now -- now Cullen was chuckling softly and humming bridal music under his breath.

Lace and silk and a bouquet of white roses and lilies. Zevran had even done his hair up for the occasion, pale locks in a sweep of an updo. Elegant shoulder-baring neckline and startling pops of color -- bright turquoise lace in his hems to match his shoes.

Behind Kiriya, Josephine was laughing as she poked at Leliana’s shoulder: “Please tell me that’s not my actual wedding gown!”

“Of course it’s not the actual thing in your closet. I looked for a pattern to match. No offense, but I don’t think you and Zevran wear the same size in dresses.” 

“I have to admit he’s a little broader in the shoulders than I am.”

“Not to mention his shoe size.”

Kiriya caught Dorian’s eye -- he snorted -- when she saw his mouth twitch she went to lean against him and started laughing. “Now, now, don’t go begging trouble, you know he’ll kick your ass if he figures out why you’re laughing at him.”

“I can’t help it,” she squeaked, “he looks so beautiful!”

“Truly?” 

And Kiriya blinked -- right at Zevran, who had finished his stately processional down the corridor and was now carefully lifting his veil away from his face. 

“I could never look like that, not even if all my sisters held me down and tried to give me a makeover.”

“I hope they didn’t actually do that to you.”

“I meant to say,” Kiriya giggled, “that they’re all usually more put-together than I ever could be.”

“I must say I disagree,” Zevran laughed. “You look quite the determined and steely Knight -- maybe costumes are the answer.”

“Yours certainly outstrips mine. I mean, no contest, put me next to you, I’d fade into the background.”

That got her a hearty laugh. “Don’t underestimate yourself -- but anyway I’m a sucker for such praise as yours and so, here, have these flowers.”

And she found herself holding on to the brightly intoxicating scents. Rose petals fluttering fragrantly to her boots.

“That is quite an unexpected thing for a Jedi to carry,” Leliana murmured. “But it looks good on you.”

She had just enough time to stammer out a “Thank you” before Josephine began to shoo the others down to the break room. Promises of cookies and soft drinks -- “All right, maybe you’re allowed to drink _a little_ , let me emphasize that, the small bottle is small for a reason” -- and then Kiriya was left alone in the corridor with her flowers, with her lightsaber, and the warmth that was rising from her fingertips.

Warmth that she was pretty sure the others could see in her face by the time she joined them, and all without touching a drop of booze -- and she was happy, somehow, when she was so new to this place and yet she had been made so welcome. A place of unexpected relief.

“Kiriya,” Dagna said, waving a cookie in the shape of an apple. “Come try this! Josephine won’t tell me where she got it but _it tastes so good_.”

And right on the heels of those breathless words: “Just a drop of this stuff’ll do you,” Dorian said, drawling. “It is awfully good. Smooth going down. _Burns_ too. But strong.”

“If that’s why you’re sitting down -- maybe I should do the more sensible thing and lie down before I try it.”

“It’s good enough to almost knock me out!”

So she set her flowers carefully aside and accepted a crumbly cookie-half, and then Leliana passed her a small paper plate with dark-red ham wrapped delicately around pale-green balls of melon, and Josephine asked her questions about the stitching on her cloak. Shianni talking excitedly about a musical that was smashing records and getting everyone to rap about historical events, and Zevran trying to film a short dubsmash video with Barris -- the laughter flowed more freely than the booze, and their smiles made her giddy. 

“You’re forgetting something,” Cullen said when he rejoined them: he was still wearing the makeup, but he had changed back into a set of scrubs. 

Kiriya watched Josephine blink, and frown, and -- “Oh! You’re right! The candies!”

“Such a shame to buy all those lovely sweeties and then _not give them away_ ,” Leliana said, with such a sharp smile that Kiriya clapped her hands over her mouth again.

“You wouldn’t let me keep them all for myself,” was Josephine’s reply, complete with an overly-exaggerated pout.

“So where were you hoarding these candies,” Cullen asked, with a grin pulling at his scarred mouth. 

“They’re in my office.”

“Let me help you get them,” Kiriya said. An impulse, and one she didn’t dare fight -- these people were good people, strange and kind and funny and driven and her people. 

“Keys in the usual place,” Josephine said as Kiriya got to her feet.

“All right,” Cullen said.

Away from the others and into one of the oversized elevator cabins. So much space and yet they stood with their shoulders touching, slouching on opposite sides of a corner.

She took a moment to observe him, now, seemingly untouched by the fears and worries that overtook him whenever Olivia Hawke got in touch: there was a lightness in the way he carried himself, a strange ease in the way his hands moved.

“So,” she said, as the elevator heaved to a stop. “So Josephine hoards sweets like they’re going out of stock, and Leliana looks like she knows everything about everyone in this hospital -- ”

“That part’s not exactly a secret,” Cullen chuckled as they headed down a corridor. “What she knows _is_ a secret, as in she won’t tell me or tell Josie, but that she _knows_ , everyone figures that out pretty quickly.”

“I didn’t. Varric warned me.”

“That’s what he does,” was the amused response. “Now it’s up to you whether you believe him or not.”

“Given his reputation? No,” Kiriya said as he ushered her into a room that she quickly recognized by the neat state of Leliana’s desk. “Given _hers_ , well.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly. _Well._ ” She watched as Cullen threw a glance at Josephine’s desk, then looked in a canvas bag. “Ah, here we are.”

She blinked as he held a pouch out to her: pretty black velvet with a drawstring closure. It was -- surprisingly heavy. “What else is in here other than candies -- oh.” 

“That’s how I knew the bag was for you,” Cullen said, kindly. “You _are_ the newcomer to the ER, after all.”

“Wow,” Kiriya said as she pulled an intricately carved miniature of a raven from the bag. “Is it -- does everyone new get something like this?”

“Turn it over,” he advised as they headed back out into the corridor, canvas bag full of candy slung over his shoulder. “There’s usually something extra on the bottom.”

And Kiriya laughed as they stepped back into the elevator, which had been humming to itself as it waited for them. “Of course it has something to do with a smartphone, why am I not surprised?”

“Leliana’s idea, but Josie’s execution,” he said as they headed back to where the party was still going on. “I have to admit, it’s really handy.”

“Wow,” she murmured again. “I want to use it, and I want to hide it in my locker and treasure it forever and ever.”

That got her a laugh, and a sort of warm expression? She couldn’t tell, not when she was so fascinated by the cleverly detailed feathers. How was the little bird _smirking_ when it had a beak and not a mouth?

So engrossed was she that she didn’t notice she’d retreated into a corner until Cullen came back -- and this time he thrust a red plastic cup with a few drops of dark liquid in the bottom. “You haven’t had a drink yet,” he said.

“Yeah, I was going to, but after what Dagna and Dorian said -- ”

“It’s okay, no one’s going to give you the stink-eye for trying it.”

“Okay,” Kiriya said, and she took the cup from his warm-rough-oversized hands. Sharp strong sweet scent, like vanilla and woodsmoke and old books -- and that was nothing compared to the taste of the booze: it was like drinking moonlit midnight, burning and smooth. “I need to get some of that,” she muttered, after wiping the back of her hand over her mouth. “But I’d have to hide it from my sisters.”

And Cullen laughed, gentle and not _at_ her. Encouraging. She wanted to laugh _with_ him.


	8. Chapter 8

Kiriya fell out of shapeless shifting restless dreams and opened her eyes, and everything was so familiar that for a moment she recognized _nothing_ : the weight of the light blanket that had gotten tangled around her legs. The warm blue-tinted light from the lamp next to her bed. Framed photographs on the walls. The black blocky shape of her smartphone on the unused pillow, and she reached for it now. A missed phone call from Cullen, and a voicemail message, and she was about to call him when the knock came, and Cassandra called her.

“Wake up, Kiriya, you have a visitor,” she said.

And Kiriya lunged across the room and yanked the door open. “Cullen?”

“Yes, but perhaps you’d like to put something else on first?” Cassandra said, motioning to her bare legs.

“What is he doing here? And what are my sisters doing to him?” Kiriya asked as she reached for her robe -- a glorious silken thing, deep dark maroon with golden scrolling embroidery on the shoulder seams, a birthday gift from Dorian -- specifically one of his cast-offs, since he’d scrawled “this white elephant would look better on you” on the card.

Cassandra laughed softly. “As I’ve gathered from Lis, he isn’t precisely a stranger to this house, so I’m not entirely sure you’re making sense.”

“Have you forgotten Katerinne’s sense of humor,” Kiriya said, dryly, but she rushed a comb through her hair anyway, and worriedly glanced at her teeth in the mirror next to the door, and followed her friend downstairs.

“You shouldn’t have,” Elisavet was saying, kind and sweet even as she tore into the box of assorted chocolates that definitely hadn’t been there when Kiriya got home after shift. 

“Mixed messages,” Yelena was saying as she squinted at something on the screen of her laptop. “Pass me the box when you’re done with it.”

And between her sisters was Cullen, windblown and smiling, though there were tentative lines around the edges of his mouth. “I tried to remember what you liked, from the last time I brought something over,” he was saying.

Kiriya sighed, and felt an overwhelming urge to storm across the room and hold him, and she did exactly that -- to approving smiles and eye-rolls. “So we’re not going out tonight?” she asked as she kissed the top of his head.

“I -- I suddenly didn’t feel like it,” and Cullen sounded apologetic. He took one of her hands in both of his and breathed a kiss over her knuckles.

“That’s all right, there’s plenty of food in the fridge, you just help yourself when you want to eat,” Elisavet said.

“Is no one going to introduce us?” Cassandra said, then, from where she was leaning against the kitchen counter.

Kiriya jumped, and felt the hot flush rise in her cheeks, and didn’t let go of Cullen. “Cassandra, this is Cullen, you know a little about him, I told you how I felt about him,” she said, in a rush. “Cullen, this is my best friend Cassandra, war hero and all-around badass and also honorary Trevelyan.”

“We’ve known her for _years_ ,” Yelena said, chocolate staining the corner of her mouth. “You might want to ask her for dirt on Kiriya.”

“Thanks, Yel,” Kiriya sighed, laughing softly. 

“Pleased to meet you,” Cullen said, and when he made to rise Kiriya shook her head and made an inarticulate sound and pushed him back down into the chair. 

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Cassandra said. “We’ll shake hands some other time, I’m sure.” 

She sounded kind and amused and Kiriya mouthed a silent “Thank you” at her.

“I’d love to hear some stories from the front,” Cullen said.

“Certainly,” Cassandra said. 

And then Kiriya blinked as Elisavet looked at the clock and jumped to her feet. “Katerinne’s five minutes away, ladies, let’s go and sit on the couch so she doesn’t have any more excuses.”

“That was quick,” Yelena said as she rose, and headed into the den. “Bring the chocolate, please.” 

“You will excuse us,” Cassandra said, grinning as she followed the others. “Katerinne has put off the _Parks and Recreation_ marathon one too many times.”

Kiriya blinked at her. “You know how busy she’s been.”

“And you know that even criminally busy people need a break every now and then. Besides, this was her idea in the first place. We’re just -- jumping the gun.” 

“I don’t understand, but, okay,” Kiriya said.

And then she was alone in the kitchen with Cullen, and she could sit down next to him and gather him close, could let him rest his cheek on her shoulder. “Tell me the truth, now,” she said, quietly, “did you even get any sleep?”

She was expecting him to sigh, and wrap his arms around her waist. “A little. It never seems to be enough, though.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, and she carded her fingers through his wilting hair. Brushed her fingertips against the lines in the corners of his eyes. She liked to see those lines when he was smiling, but these days she seemed to see those lines only when he was frowning, only when he was sunk in melancholy thought, only when he was gritting his teeth over some delicate operation, only when he wasn’t happy. “Let’s do something about that.”

“Your sisters,” he said, though he rose to his feet easily enough, willingly enough, at the barest tug of her fingers at his sleeve. “Your friend.”

“My sisters are not concerned about you sleeping in my room, and you know it, and I will remind you of it every single time,” Kiriya said as she retraced her steps. “And Cassandra will scold me, I know, but that’s how she asks those sly questions of hers about how you are in bed.”

It was oddly gratifying to see how those last words made Cullen flush. “And what have you told her?”

“Well, think about it, she’s my best friend, I don’t keep any secrets from her.”

“I don’t want to know,” he said, after a moment.

“Wise.” Kiriya pushed him gently into her room, and double-checked the door to make sure that it was locked, and she pointed him in the direction of her bed.

When he sat down on the duvet he sighed like a wounded man, and she winced and hurried back to him so she could kiss his temple, so that she could lay him down onto the pillows. “Sleep,” she said, quietly, and dropped her robe on the floor. Kisses across his cheeks and on the tip of his nose; kisses on the corners of his mouth, and against his scarred lips. 

“I don’t have much time to spend with you,” he protested, around a yawn. “Have to get back to work tomorrow evening.”

“Sleep before anything else,” was Kiriya’s reply, gently insistent. “Your eyebags have eyebags.”

“Story of my life,” Cullen sighed as he finally curled onto his side, having kicked his shoes off between kisses.

After a moment she clambered into the space he’d left between himself and the wall of her room, and she was surrounded by him, by the tired lines of him and the furrow that persisted between his eyebrows. The furrow that persisted even as she tried to kiss and smooth it away.

Kiriya tucked herself into his chest and closed her eyes, and sleep was a long time coming, because restless murmurs fell from Cullen’s lips and she couldn’t stop herself from listening. 

And she’d hoped to spend some time with him without thinking about red-crazed eyes staring in at them from the darkness.

Still, he seemed to calm, a little, at her touch.

She dozed, and then woke to find him sitting up next to her feet.

“I wasn’t dreaming,” Cullen murmured, when she shifted to sit next to him, to lean on him. “Or if I was dreaming I can’t remember any of it.”

“Small mercies,” Kiriya said. The clock on her smartphone said it was half past midnight. “Why are we up?”

A soft sheepish chuckle; an unexpected surprise. “Hungry.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Kiriya murmured, and she held out her arms, and let him pull her to her feet. “Time to raid the kitchen.”

The house settled creaking and familiar around her, around their clasped hands, as she led him downstairs, and back to the kitchen. 

She left him to look in the refrigerator; she looked around on the counters for ideas. Half a dozen cinnamon rolls, four bananas, a half-finished can of honey-roasted almonds, and the last unopened box of cornflakes -- and she turned to Cullen and whispered, “Is there any milk?”

In response he put that carton on the nearest bit of counter that he could reach, where he’d already put out a couple of glass containers. Kiriya peered at their contents after depositing her haul on the table: two slices of pepperoni-and-mushroom pizza, some shrimp-and-scallops fried rice. 

“Is this chicken?” Cullen asked, holding another container out.

“If you want to eat that, sure, but I’ll pass.” She grabbed a bowl and a spoon, and opened the can of nuts. 

Somewhere in the house, a clock was chiming one o’clock, and the floorboards were creaking, and Kiriya drank the dregs of her cereal and milk out of the bowl, and then, a new voice: “That had better not be the 2%.”

“I don’t drink that,” Cullen said, and Kiriya wiped her mouth and threw the newcomer a grin. “Morning, Cassandra.”

“Good morning. Pass the pizza.”

Kiriya passed the cinnamon rolls, as well, and offered Cullen a bite of banana. “Why are you awake in the middle of the night?”

“I just woke up,” was Cassandra’s reply. “Bad dreams.”

Kiriya made a sympathetic noise. “You seeing someone for that?”

“The people who handled my discharge papers gave me a few recommendations. I had been meaning to run the names past you.”

“Yeah, sure, shoot.”

“Bang,” Cassandra said.

Cullen snorted.

Kiriya sighed, and grinned, and said, “I must have forgotten to say that Cassandra is terrible at jokes and humor.”

“Again, that comes with being part of the family,” Cassandra said. 

“I can see why you fit in,” Cullen said, and Kiriya poked at the twitching muscle in his cheek.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” Cassandra finished off the pizza, and reached for the fried rice. “But to business. Names. There’s one, at Skyhold General. Vivienne de Fer.”

“Go and make an appointment with her,” Kiriya said as she pushed her used dishes away. 

“What is she like?”

“Stern,” Cullen said, and Kiriya nodded. “Don’t let the other titles distract you from the main one. She’s a top-flight psychiatrist. She knows when to be blunt and she knows when to be kind. Oh, and I hope you like jokes that can cut you to the quick. She’s kind of an expert at that.”

“I served in the armed forces,” was Cassandra’s wry response. “I’ve heard my fair share of jokes that left people bleeding, after.”

“Then you and Madame will get along just fine,” Kiriya said. 

A pause as Cassandra looked briefly in the refrigerator. Kiriya yawned, and rinsed her dishes, and the thrum of the water from the tap was loud in the quiet of the kitchen, and she was just leaning sleepily against Cullen’s shoulder when Cassandra cleared her throat. “And who are you seeing?”

Cullen sighed, unhappily, and Kiriya put her arms around him. “That’s complicated.”

“It was a simple question.”

“I did go to therapy after -- after my exposure to red lyrium. He and I didn’t get along; I think the experience was too raw for me to process.”

“Therapy is prescribed soon after trauma.”

“I know I have to go back. I -- I can ask Vivienne for recommendations. Obviously I can’t be treated at Skyhold.”

“Forgive me,” Cassandra said, quietly. “We have only just met and I am already crossing a line with you.”

Kiriya glanced at Cullen and couldn’t help but throw him a quick smile, because he didn’t look offended at all. “You’re not crossing a line. It’d take much more than that. You should hear Olivia when she yells at me. And she does that fairly often.”

“Who is Olivia?”

“Olivia Hawke,” Kiriya said, around another yawn. “The investigator. Our contact in the police department. When we talk about red lyrium she’s either in the room or we’re talking behind her back.”

“You mentioned that I should, perhaps, meet her,” Cassandra said as she got to her feet. “I think that perhaps I should do that soon.”

“I can text you her number.”

“In the morning. Later. When the sun is out.”

And Kiriya watched her friend stalk out of the kitchen.

“Is now a good time to say, _I’ve got a bad feeling about this_?” Cullen asked, after a moment.

“Bad for Cass? For Olivia?” Kiriya thought, and added, “For everyone in the red lyrium conversation?”

“The last one.”

“Yeah, you should say it. I agree with you.”

When he reached for her hand she gave it.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) and my Dragon Age: Inquisition blog is [here](http://ninemoons42-inquisition.tumblr.com/).


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